Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved
its version of an FY 2002 Commerce-Justice appropriations bill (S. 1215)
that would dramatically increase funding for the Department of Commerce's
R&D programs. The bill would boost Commerce R&D by 13.5 percent
or $162 million for a total of $1.4 billion (see Table).
This would be a sharp contrast to the House version of the bill, approved
earlier this month, which would cut Commerce R&D by 9.4 percent.
Both of Commerce's two major R&D agencies-the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST)-would receive large increases from the Senate.
NOAA R&D would rise by 15.1 percent, or $110 million above FY 2001,
while NIST R&D would jump by 19.7 percent, some $83 million above
the FY 2001 level. The Senate would break with the Bush Administration
and the House's proposals to eliminate NIST's Advanced Technology Program
and would provide an almost 40 percent increase in FY 2002 for the program.
The Senate Commerce-Justice bill is able to be generous
to R&D programs because of its large total allocation. The $38.4
billion of discretionary spending in the bill would be nearly $1 billion
more than the FY 2001 funding level, and would be higher than both the
President's request and the House funding level. (For details of Commerce
R&D in the President's request, please see Chapter
12 of AAAS
Report XXVI: R&D FY 2002; for details of Commerce R&D
in House appropriations, please see the July 18
AAAS R&D Funding Update). The bill, in addition to Commerce
programs, funds the Department of Justice, the Department of State,
and miscellaneous international programs.
NOAA R&D programs are a high priority for the Senate,
as they have been in past years. NOAA plays a key role in research on
the topics of climate change, weather, and fisheries. The Senate
bill would provide substantial increases of more than 10 percent across
several NOAA R&D accounts, including those in the National Ocean
Service (NOS); Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR); the National
Weather Service (NWS); and the National Environmental Satellite, Data
and Information Service (NESDIS; see Table). Only the National Marine
Fisheries Service would see a smaller R&D increase of 3.7 percent.
Total NOAA R&D would rise 15.1 percent to $835 million.
The Senate would keep NIST's Advanced Technology
Program (ATP) alive with a boost of 40 percent in its R&D to $166
million. The Bush Administration and the House would all but eliminate
the program. Started by the first Bush Administration but promoted as
a key technology initiative by the Clinton Administration, the ATP is
an extramural research grants program to provide precompetitive cost-shared
R&D support for promising market technologies. The House has repeatedly
voted to terminate the program, but the Senate and the Clinton Administration
had managed to preserve it in past budget struggles. Many Republicans
regard the ATP as "corporate welfare," a subsidy to industrial
firms that unnecessarily funds research private firms could and should
support.
The Administration requested only $13 million for ATP
in FY 2002, only enough to close out previously awarded grants and pay
for administration costs, with no funds for R&D in FY 2002. The
House would go along with the Administration proposal, but the Senate
bill expresses strong support for the program. In addition to the large
40 percent increase for the program, the report language accompanying
the bill notes: the program has been extensively evaluated, often favorably;
studies reveal that the ATP does not fund projects that would have otherwise
been funded with private funds because of carefully constructed safeguards;
and numerous reports indicate that it is a valuable and well-managed
innovation program. The fate of the ATP will now be decided in House-Senate
conference; the large Senate increase was undoubtedly designed to offer
maximum leverage in negotiations with the House, in the hopes that a
compromise between elimination and a 40 percent increase could be reached
somewhere close to the FY 2001 funding level.
Because of the large boost to ATP R&D, total NIST
R&D would increase by 19.7 percent in the Senate bill to $504 million,
in sharp contrast to the House's proposed 24.1 percent cut down to $319
million. The main NIST R&D activity-Scientific and Technical
Research and Services (STRS), which funds intramural research at the
NIST laboratories-would rise by a substantial 9.8 percent (or $31
million) to $294 million. The House would provide slightly more. The
other NIST R&D program, Construction of Research Facilities, would
increase $9 million over FY 2001 and $23 million over the request because
of the inclusion of $18 million for four congressionally designated
research projects. The non-R&D Manufacturing Extension Partnership
(MEP), a program to operate a nationwide network of extension centers
to disseminate better manufacturing technologies to small- and medium-sized
manufacturers, would receive $105 million, the same amount as FY 2001.
R&D in the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) would fall from $51 million to $21 million in
FY 2002 because of a reduction in Technology Opportunity Grants from
$46 million back down to the FY 2000 level of $16 million. These grants
fund the development of innovative information technology systems to
Americans in under-served communities.
The Commerce-Justice bill now heads to the Senate floor,
where it is expected to win approval before the August recess. The fate
of the ATP now rests in a House-Senate conference committee, which may
not convene until September; although a compromise between the House's
proposed elimination and the Senate's proposed increase is likely, the
final funding level will depend on many factors, including how strongly
the Bush Administration and House Republicans will insist on eliminating
the program.
- July 24, 2001
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
science_policy@aaas.org
http://www.aaas.org/spp/R&D
